98 THE BEE-MASTER OF WARRILOW 
a queen if the workers chose. But the worker-egg 
is laid into a small cell, and the larva is bred on a 
bare minimum of food, at the least possible cost in 
time, trouble, and space to the hive; while, when 
a new queen is wanted, a cell as big as your finger- 
top is built, and the larva is stuffed like a prize-pig 
through all its five days of active life, until, with 
unlimited food and time and room to grow in, it 
comes out at last a perfect mother-bee.”’ 
‘* But,” I asked him, ‘‘ how is the population in 
the hive regulated, and how can the apportionment 
of the sexes be brought about? If, as you say, the 
queen does only what she is made to do by the 
workers, and that unthinkingly and mechanically, 
you only increase the difficulty of the problem.”’ 
“As for increasing or restricting the number of 
eggs laid,’ he said, ‘“‘ that is only a question of 
food; and here you see how the workers control the 
mother-bee entirely, and, through her, the whole con- 
dition of the hive. When she is egg-laying they feed 
her from their own mouths with special predigested 
food; and the more she gets of this, the more eggs are 
laid. But when the season is done, and the need 
for a large population over, this rich stimulating 
diet is kept from her. She then must go to the 
honey-cells like the rest, or starve; and at once her 
egg-laying powers begin to fall off. And it is in 
exactly the same way—by their management of the 
queen—that the workers control the proportion of 
the sexes in a hive. ’Tis more difficult to explain, 
but here is about the rights of it. Directly the new- 
hatched queen-bee is ready for work, she flies out 
to meet the drones; and one impregnation lasts her 
whole life through. But the eggs themselves are 
